Tell me a little about B-4

[rogueattorney]

It's a 28 page booklet detailing an 8 level pyramid dungeon and underground city. Thus it's quite necessarily scant in details. The first three or four levels of the dungeon are all that's really statted out fully. Everything else is basically just an outline. The suggested encounters at the lower level are just that: suggestions, and the module plainly states that the DM will have to be creative in coming up with a rationale for some of the encounters.

My main criticism would be that the map should be rearranged just a tad to allow for some more vertical movement between the levels for both the pcs and npcs.

It is quite clearly influenced by "Red Nails" (as was I1 Dwellers of the Forbidden City, by the way). All said, I think the module's an incredible example of Tom Moldvay's ability to convey a campaign's worth of inspiration in a very limited amount of space, a quality that he brought to many of his projects - X1 Isle of Dread, X2 Castle Amber, the Star Frontiers Volturnas series, and his Avalon Hill rpg, Lords of Creation are all great additional examples. The side-view map plus description of the underground cavern in which the city is found is enough to get my creative juices going.

 

[Rhun]

They're above ground ruins, as I recall.

The ruins in I1 are above ground, but they reside at the bottom of a caldera if I remember correctly. So the PCs either have to climb down to the city, or enter via caves.

And yes, I1 has a map of the entire city, plus more detailed maps of smaller regions.

 

[Lancelot]

B4 is my favorite module of all time. However, for the purposes of the Original Poster [OP], I'd recommend I1. Here's why...

• The main focus (80%) of B4 is on the Great Ziggurat, rather than the Lost City below it. It's a pyramid-based adventure, not a city-based adventure. The isometric city map is a single page and has very little detail. More than enough to spark some ideas and act as a campaign setting, but it sounds like the OP already has that well in hand.
• The actual keyed maps in B4 are... unsophisticated. I personally love them. They're old-school D&D. They only cover the 10 levels of the Great Ziggurat. None of the city buildings are mapped or keyed.
• The value of B4 is as a setting. It introduces new gods, a lost civilization and its history, various factions and their regalia, a crazed cult worshipping a Cthulhu-esque monster, various tricks and traps, and many adventure seeds for continuing the campaign.

As for I1...

• I1 features a much larger and more detailed isometric map of a ruined city.
• There are many keyed maps that detail specific areas of the city. These include two traditional "dungeons" which are the "entrances" into the city, and various specific buildings or groups of buildings within the city. Each detailed area is held by one of the power factions within the city (various humanoids or evil "bosses", mostly working together).
• The setting info for I1 is not, in my opinion, as sophisticated as B4. The factions of B4 are largely human; they worship various gods and have their own customs and rivalries. The factions of I1 are largely monsters: there are yuan-ti, bullywugs, etc. With perhaps one exception, they all work together to do eeevil. Hence, there are fewer opportunities to play them off against each other, work with them, or even join certain factions. With a few exceptions (which I won't spoil here), they are enemies to be overcome.
• However, that doesn't matter so much if you're going to strip out most of the content. The maps are better (and more varied), and the double-page ruined city map sounds exactly like what the OP needs.

 

[M.L. Martin]

I don't own B4, but from the description, I think a lot of it was revisited in the Zargon chapter of Elder Evils for 3.5, so if you have that or could find it cheap, it could be useful.

(It used to be really easy to find it dirt cheap, but the price seems to have rebounded in the past year or so. It's still not that expensive, but it may be more than you'd want to pay for one chapter.)

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

The ruins in I1 are above ground, but they reside at the bottom of a caldera if I remember correctly. So the PCs either have to climb down to the city, or enter via caves.

They used the same schtick for A3/A4, although (spoiler alert) it didn't work out so well for the Slavers in the end ...

 

[GreyLord]

B4 was a predecessor of Data and Lore. He was an older model that was disassembled. Eventually he was spread apart over a planet as a trap for Data, who reassembled the older model and copied over his main diagnostic structure over in hopes of being able to upgrade B4's processes.

It seemed as if it did not accomplish anything on B4, however eventually if you follow the comics and accept the comic written for the new Star Trek as Canon (as the movie makers claimed it is) then something occurred with that copy and Data's own intelligence actually over rode B4's limited capacity and replaced B4 with Data.

Oh...wait...you meant the Module...not model in Star Trek....

 

[Rhun]

They used the same schtick for A3/A4, although (spoiler alert) it didn't work out so well for the Slavers in the end ...

No, no it didn't. BUt that's what happens when the Earth Dragon gets upset!